Chapter 1

~Teiko Days~

Shirane's POV

I always thought that there were only 4 types of ways to play basketball. It was size, accuracy, skills and strategy. Akashi, Mura-kun, Aomine and Midorima were perfect examples of that. Things like speed or power are a given fact since it was the basics of basketball. However there were some exceptions like Kuroko's passing and Haizaki's stealing moves. I classify them as specialists and I believe there were only a handful of them around.

Well at least that's what I thought until I met him.

I was on my way to school to resume my duties in the basketball club as the Coach's assistant even though school was over. Why is that so? Well I haven't attended school for 2 weeks because I had to travel halfway across the country to attend a wedding ceremony.

As we all know that Teiko, being the school that won the national championship last year, we were expected to work hard and guard our title. Our basketball club was so popular that we have too many members, thus divided into 3 strings. Knowing Coach, he won't be able to handle the club's training by himself. Thankfully Akashi offered to fill in the role for me while I was away.

However I felt guilty and with the fact that a whole bunch of work that pile up while I was away, I decided to return to school the moment I reached home.

When I reached the school gates, many people were leaving school. I took out my cell phone to check the time. It was past 4.30.

Great, practice is over. Might as well go in and check out what needs to be done around here. Let's see if anyone is still at locker room.

As I approached the locker room, there was a girl waiting outside. She's eyeing on me as I walked by her. I am guessing that she is Haizaki's new girlfriend. Haizaki is a starting member of the team. He and I are classmates and he is well known as player. I hope that he is not there.

And how wrong was I. There was the person that I least wanted to see, Haizaki.

Don't get me wrong or anything like that. I don't like it when Haizaki clings onto me whenever he sees me. Clinginess is something that I do not like.

"Hmm? Shirane-chan! It's been a while!"

Haizaki walks over and fling his arm around my neck. He's sweating as though he got drenched by the rain.

"So where did you run off to in the last 2 weeks. It was boring without you around."

Haizaki was leaning on to me now. He stinks pretty badly.

"Haizaki, your girlfriend is waiting outside. Don't make her wait."

I sternly look at him and removed his arms off me.

"Eh so mean. Okay. See ya tomorrow then."

Haizaki walked off into the showers, putting his hand up to say bye to me.

I sighed. I can imagine tomorrow is going to be hell in class. Plus I now I have sweat on me, great. Come to think of it, usually he would be the one to leave the earliest. Why was he later than usual? And why was he sweating as though he has a match?

I found out the answer when Akashi and the rest walked in.

"Eh? Shirane? Why are you here? I thought you will be back tomorrow?"

Aomine spoke first, clearly a bit surprised like the rest of them were except for Akashi and Mura-kun. Well, Mura-kun doesn't seem like he cared at all. I am a bit surprised that a basketball freak like Aomine would remember when I was coming back.

"I was worried about Coach so I decided to drop by and check up on him."

I smiled at them while trying not to breathe in the stench as they each headed to their own lockers. At least it wasn't as bad as Haizaki's stench.

"Coach is in his office now and don't worry, I made sure that everyone did their training. Isn't that right?"

Akashi looked at the rest with a glint in his eyes. I was sure that everyone gulped as they nodded at the same time.

"Oh…"

Somehow I think that the court became hell while I was away.

"What about Haizaki? Did you made him do extra training or something? He was sweating pretty badly."

"Ah that? It wasn't me. You know well that Shougo only listens to you. He was slacking off while you were away."

Akashi wasn't happy mentioning about Haizaki. Haizaki is the only person on the team that didn't fear or respect him after all.

"Haizaki-kun and Kise-kun had a match just now."

Kuroko suddenly appeared in front of me. He nearly scared the hell out of me. How can a person have such a lack of presence?

"Ki..Kise?"

I was surprised. I haven't heard of that name in the basketball club before.

"You know Mr popular?"

Aomine was placing his arm on Kuroko's shoulders.

Oh right, Kise Ryouta. He is the guy who both smart and good looking. He works as a model and has many girls flocking towards him. I only heard of him through words of my female classmates. Apparently he changes clubs all the time.

"Oh that guy. So he decided to join the basketball club now."

I wasn't interested in a guy who has no passion or dedication to anything, just like Haizaki. Sooner or later that guy will leave the club.

"He challenged Haizaki to a match, with the starting position on the line. And of course Haizaki won."

Aomine was spinning the ball in his other hand. Kuroko was giving off the feeling that he was a little annoyed at Aomine putting his arm on him. However I wasn't really sure since Kuroko had a deadpan face.

"But his speed of growth was amazing though."

Midorima shifted his glasses up holding his item of the day which was a Dictionary. Midorima was one of the weirdest people I know.

"Is that so?"

That sparked a bit of my interest.

"He's in the court getting over his loss now."

Mura-kun pointed at the door as he sat on the bench, munching on his snack with his other hand. Even though he is big and has an obsession with snacks, he is the only one who can read my mind. Sometimes I am glad he could read me like an open book.

"May I have the ball?"

I reach out my hands at Aomine and smiled. Everyone's face at that moment paled. Aomine immediately threw the ball over to me.

"See you guys tomorrow!"

I smiled as I walked to the court, throwing the ball up in the air.

"I hope that guy will be alright…"

As I walked into the court, there was a good looking blond haired guy kneeling over on the floor. It seems like he took it too hard on himself.

I walked closer and threw the basketball on his head.

"Ouch!"

Kise turned around and looked at me, rubbing the back of his head. I have just caught the ball the just bounce back to me.

"Get up."

He looked at me for a moment before turning away. At that moment I got annoyed and threw the ball on his head.

"Ouch! Hey stop it!"

Kise was getting annoyed but I kept throwing the ball on his head. I was like playing a Yo-yo except there was a person at the end of the string. And because of that, everyone in the club feared me whenever I asked or held a ball in my hands.

"Okay, okay I am getting up!"

I stopped throwing the ball when he stood up, and was rubbing on the throbbing part of his head.

"Play a match with me."

He stared at me. Obviously he didn't believe in me at all so I threw the ball on his head.

"Ouch! Okay, okay, okay!"

We got into position on the court. Kise was taking it easy from the looks of it. It's probably because I am a girl.

"I will start first since you aren't serious."

I slip past him quickly after I said that. He was shocked that I went past him. He then came after me, trying to snatch the ball back. However I was too fast for him. With the speed of mine, I jumped up while still running and threw the ball into the net.

Kise was stunned but he recovered shortly after and took the ball that was coming down the net.

"I am not going to go easy on you just because you are a girl."

Then he dash over the other side of the court with a smile plastered on his face. To me it looks like he finally acknowledges me as a player and he seem to cheer up from his loss. However not wanting to lose, I ran after him.

When Kise was about to reach the net, he jumped and did the exact same thing that I did earlier. No, it was much faster and powerful that what I did.

I was surprised that his ability was to copy people moves, no, rather it was copy and do an improve version of their moves. However was he the same as Haizaki? Breaking the rhythm off people?

I took the ball and did the same move on the same side of the court. There was no rhythm breaking at all.

"Hey, you do know that your net is at the other side of the court."

Kise was confused at what I did earlier but I didn't care.

"We will end it here. See you again tomorrow."

With that, I walked off to the Coach's office.

"Huh?! We barely just started!"

Kise shouted after me. Extremely confused of what was going on.

Kise's POV

"Hey! I demand an explanation!"

That whitish-purple haired girl went in to the office, leaving me alone.

What's going on? Firstly, this girl hit my head with the ball and threatens to play a match with her. After a few baskets, she shoots the ball at the wrong basket and ends the game there. Now she's going to leave me here?!

"I see you met Shirane-san."

"Ehhhhh~!"

Kurokocchi suddenly appeared in front of me without me noticing. I think I've gotten a heart attack.

"Kurokocchi! You scared the hell out of me!"

I placed my hand on my chest to calm myself down.

"I was here all this time."

Kuroko looked at me with his usual poker face. Sometimes I think Kurokocchi enjoys scaring people.

"There you are Tetsu!"

I turned to the direction of the voice and saw Aominecchi running towards us.

"Ah. Aomine-kun."

"I thought you went in the shower first."

"I left my towel behind so I went to get it. What about you Aomine-kun?"

"I came here to tell Kise to hurry because we are going to get some popsicles later."

Aominecchi turn around and faced me, grinning ear to ear.

"Again? Didn't we have one yesterday?"

I can't get over the fact that Aominecchi can consume popsicles day after day. Wait a minute, Murasakibaracchi consumes even more than him. Anyway, what's more is that the first time they asked me out to celebrate me joining the club, we ended up having popsicles and I somehow have to pay for all of them.

"What? Watching out for your weight? It's so troublesome to be a model."

Aominecchi is right, being a model is troublesome. At times I have to watch what I eat. This is the price to pay for being handsome.

"Anyway, Kurokocchi, Who is this Shirane-san?"

I turned to where Kurokocchi was last seen but there was no answer. Kurokocchi was gone!

"Ehhhh~! Where's Kurokocchi?!"

"He went back to the showers. You should too. And looking at you, you must have survived Shirane's ball."

Aomine headed back to the locker room.

"Huh? What do you mean? Geez… Wait up!"

I picked up my stuff and ran after him.

I wrote this quite a while back when I was reading the chapter about Haizaki beating Kise during the flashback in their Teiko Days. I have a spur of inspiration at the moment and wrote it down. After, I saved it somewhere in my computer and forgotten about it until now.

So far I have only wrote 1 chapter. Not to worry, I will try my best to get more chapters down. However, it may take some time to get it done.